International Mayan League 1201 K St. NW Washington, D.C. 20005
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March 17, 2021 Francisco Cali Tzay Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples The Indigenous Peoples Law and Policy Program University of Arizona Rogers College of Law
RE: HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLES LIVING IN URBAN AREAS The Case of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Region Distinguished Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples, Francisco Cali Tzay My name is Juanita Cabrera Lopez, and I am a proud member of the Maya Mam Nation, one of 22 distinct Maya nations in Guatemala. As the Executive Director of the International Mayan League, I express our appreciation for this virtual consultation on the Situation of Indigenous Peoples Living in Urban Areas. My focus is on Indigenous peoples forcibly displaced from our ancestral homelands who are now residing in urban areas in destination countries. A) Key Factors Driving the Displacement and Urbanization of Indigenous Peoples Root drivers of forced migration for Indigenous Peoples of Abiayala1 (the Americas) have existed for 528 years since the imposition of colonial governments, borders and institutions that promote structural racism, oppressive laws, and policies. Our rights of self-determination, autonomy and self-government have been systematically denied for centuries. Ongoing conflicts and lack of full legal protection over our lands, territories and natural goods are a direct outcome of this colonial legacy, and a cornerstone of the history of Indigenous resistance. A new era of forced displacement and persecution by transnational corporations, the imposition of megaprojects in our ancestral lands, structural violence and inequalities has disproportionately affected us resulting in continual human rights violations and regional instability. For the Maya, forced migration is intricately connected to the 36-years of internal armed conflict and genocide in Guatemala, which resulted in over 200,000 people killed or disappeared, and over 1.5 million forcibly displaced from their ancestral homelands. All of these factors have been further exacerbated in 2020 by COVID -19 and extremely destructive hurricanes Eta and Iota, which were related to climate change. B) Who Are the Indigenous Peoples Migrating? Indigenous peoples are 8% of the population in Latin America, with the largest populations in Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia.2 Just in Guatemala, Indigenous peoples comprise close to 80% of the population and constitute 22 distinct Maya Nations, Xinka and Garifuna peoples; there are 68 Emil’ Keme (2018). “For Abiayala to Live, the Americas Must Die: Toward a Transhemispheric Indigeneity.” Native American and Indigenous Studies 5(1), 42-68. 2 World Bank. Indigenous Latin America in the Twenty-First Century. https://www.worldbank.org (Accessed: December 9. 2020). 1
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distinct Indigenous nations in Mexico3, and dozens more in every country in Central and South America. Today, many Indigenous peoples fleeing to the United States (U.S.). are unaccompanied children or families traveling with children because minors are the most affected by structural inequality, discrimination, and debilitating poverty in our communities. Some of the largest numbers of both unaccompanied minors and family units within forced migration and apprehensions at the U.S./Mexico border are specifically from Guatemala followed by Honduras and El Salvador. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), demographics of migrants to the U.S. are changing, claiming that “over 60% are family units and unaccompanied children and 60% are nonMexican. In FY17, Custom and Border Protection Agency (CBP) apprehended 94,285 family units from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador (Northern Triangle) at the Southern border. Of those, 99% remain in the country today.”4 Since 2015, the CBP has reported 112,473 unaccompanied minors from Guatemala apprehended at the border; and since 2016 there have been 500,594 family units and single adult apprehensions, all from Guatemala.5 The number of apprehensions and changing demographic profiles of those migrating to the U.S. tells us that hundreds of thousands of Indigenous children, families and single adults are being apprehended at the border, now live in the U.S. and are completely invisible in plain sight. C) Where Are Indigenous Peoples Resettling? Per the Indigenous Language Office at Casa Alitas immigration shelter in Tucson, Arizona (AZ) there has been a more than doubling of Indigenous peoples who speak an Indigenous language in the AZ border region, with Maya Indigenous language speakers constituting the greatest demographic increase. 6 For the 2017-2019 period, Indigenous families have resettled across 42 U.S. states with the highest concentrations of resettlements occurring in the Atlantic Seaboard, Florida Peninsula, lower Appalachia, the West Coast, and Houston, TX.7 D) Maya Peoples in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Maryland (the D.C. Metropolitan Region)
Per self-reported data from Maya community leaders, the Maya community is roughly a population of about 20,000-25,000 in the entire D.C. Metropolitan region. Through Indigenous led community mapping in 2020 and early 2021, we have documented the presence of over 200 families (over 800 individuals) who are of the Maya Mam, Ixil, Achi, K’iche’, Kaqchikel, Q’eqchi’, and Garifuna peoples, respectively.8 Ixil peoples are some of the most recent arrivals, whereas the Mam peoples resettlement is more established and are one of the largest Maya populations in this particular urban region. In the last two years, there has been an increase in unaccompanied youth or families with youth members, many ranging from 13-17 years of age. Throughout the immigration system and government agencies there is statistical omission of Indigenous peoples, lack of disaggregated Maya language data and/or erroneous Hispanic/Latino categorization. Since there is little to no official data that reflects Indigenous identity collected through schools, clinics, social service agencies, or the State; our Maya population information is based on our community outreach, anecdotes from community leaders, Indigenous led community mapping, and knowledge from respective family members in Guatemala.
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International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs. Indigenous peoples in Mexico. https://www.iwgia.org/ (Accessed: January 05,2021). 4 U.S Department of Homeland Security. Migrant Protection Protocols. https://www.dhs.gov/ (Accessed: January 05, 2021) 5 U.S. Customs and Border Protection. U.S. Border Patrol Southwest Border Apprehensions by Sector. https://www.cbp.gov (Accessed: January 07, 2021) 6 Gentry, Blake and Richardson, Marianne. 2019. “Arrows Shooting Forward, Indigenous Language Migration in the Age of Border Militarization.” 7 Juanita Cabrera Lopez, Patrisia Gonzales, Rachel Rose Bobelu Starks, and Lorena Brady. 2019. “Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Exist, Self-Determination, Language and Due Process in Migration.”: www.indigenousalliance.org (March 15, 2021). 8 Community based mapping in progress, a partnership between the International Mayan League, Indigenous Languages Office, and Totago.
International Mayan League 1201 K St. NW Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 827-6673 Email: info@mayanleague.org www.mayanleague.org
E) Indigenous Peoples in Migration and Urban Areas – Racism and Discrimination In “Indigenous Peoples Right to Exist, Self-Determination, Language and Due Process in Migration”, it was indicated that “Indigenous Peoples’ migration experience is characterized by unique vulnerabilities, which stem from our Indigenous identity and the intersection of discrimination, racism, and language.”9 For Indigenous women and girls, these vulnerabilities are further amplified because of their gender and risk for sexual violence and human trafficking. Overarching human rights violations are misidentification of Indigenous peoples as Latino, Latinx, or Hispanic. Due to the erasure of our Indigenous identity and languages plus the imposition of Spanish or English, the due process rights of Indigenous migrants are violated from first point of contact through the entire immigration system. The on-going misclassification and erasure of Indigenous peoples’ identity during their migration journey, the denial of their right to identify as an Indigenous person and to speak their primary Indigenous language, not only violates their basic human rights, but leads to further grave human rights violations. When Indigenous migrants are not able to communicate their reasons for fleeing their homelands and their basic or urgent medical needs in Spanish or English, this becomes a contributing factor to violations of human rights related to health, due process, and even to life itself. This crisis has worsened within the COVID-19 pandemic. Once Indigenous peoples are at their final place of resettlement, human rights violations continue generally. Indigenous identity, discrimination, racism, legal status, language, gender, and economic status all have contributed to ongoing violations. These factors play into the larger systemic issues faced by Indigenous peoples in housing, labor, environment, health, and education- all which hinder the full enjoyment of their rights. The dominant society and governmental bodies have denied Indigenous peoples the right to determine their own identity and mislabeled them as Latino or Hispanic. This coupled with the deep misconception and confusion about Indigenous peoples amounts to a lack of awareness that they are part of the migrant community, but more importantly to a critical gap in needed services and resources. Though discrimination and human rights violations are rampant for Indigenous peoples, they often do not speak out due to lack of awareness of their rights, fear, and more importantly – because they literally cannot communicate with the larger society and because they are not even considered Indigenous. Combined with the severe language access issue, many community members suffer from anxiety, mental health issues, substance abuse and re-traumatization of an already historically traumatized community. Community members have identified the following as common problems or barriers to their full enjoyment of basic human rights in urban areas:
❖ Lack of information and understanding of their Indigenous human rights under state and federal laws, including right to language access which affects all facets of community members’ lives, i.e., school registration, access to basic medical care, wage theft protections, ❖ Instability and fear from the climate of repression in our communities, resulting in mental health issues and trauma, ❖ Discrimination and racism because of Indigenous identity and languages, ❖ Social community imbalance because there are no Indigenous community social networks, ❖ Retaining historical memory and its effects to individual and collective rights, ❖ Lack of information of their rights as Indigenous peoples,
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See Cabrera López et.al. “Indigenous Peoples Right to Exist” www.indigenousalliance.org
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❖ Disconnect from ancestral lands and territories and challenges to maintain a permanent link with their cultures and cosmovision. F) Specific Situation of Indigenous Children and Girls Indigenous children are particularly vulnerable, many cannot adequately communicate outside of their Indigenous language and express themselves in Spanish, let alone English. In 2018 The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) reported that under the U.S. Zero Tolerance Policy, thousands of children were separated from their families10. As we already know, over 666 children continue to await reunification.11 There is a lack of statistical data of how many of those children are Indigenous and the role their Indigenous identity, including their languages, may have played in their separation. Furthermore, according to the “Family Separation Under the Trump Administration”, hundreds of reports tell of inhumane treatment in detention centers, the caging of children, and sexual abuse.12 And most horrifically “since May 2018, six indigenous children and youths have died in DHS custody or have been killed at the Southern Border by U.S. Border Officials.”13 We continue to demand justice and accountability for Claudia Patricia Gómez González (Mam), Jakelin Caal Maquin (Q’eqchi’), Felipe Gómez Alonzo (Chuj), Juan de León Gutiérrez (Ch’orti’), Wilmer Josue Ramirez Vasquez (Ch’orti’), and Carlos Gregorio Hernández Vásquez (Achi). Particularly affected are youth and children, especially recent arrivals still reckoning with trauma from the migration journey, family separation and reunification, commonly from low-income households, and constant insecurity and instability amidst threats of family separation and deportation. Indigenous
children in forced migration carry many scars as they integrate into urban settings and begin their lives in these foreign places. Through direct community consultations since 2017, the following have been identified as common problems faced by Indigenous children and youth. These inequalities and discrimination have only been further exacerbated by COVID-19. Problems faced by Indigenous children and youth ❖ Fractured family units separated by geographic and legal boundaries and inhumane policies such as the Zero Tolerance Policy, ❖ Possible illegal adoptions and foster care placement due to family separation, ❖ Mental health issues, including depression, suicidal tendencies, and poor self-esteem. ❖ Identity crises due to internal and external pressures and safety concerns, ❖ Drugs and gang recruitment and involvement, ❖ Economic insecurity, particularly accrued debt from migration journey and supplying income to families in ancestral territories, ❖ Academic challenges due to language barriers and often lack of formal education in country of origin including limited literacy in Spanish, ❖ Bullying in schools toward Indigenous children and youth, especially for recent arrivals who speak little to no Spanish and/or English, ❖ Lack of access to technology worsening a widening educational gap due to virtual learning. G) Specific Situation of Indigenous Women In 2019 an all women team from the International Mayan League went to the US/Mexico border and partnered with the Indigenous Alliance without Borders and Casa Alitas in AZ to document human rights violations. We interviewed 39 participants in two shelters and found that 59% were female and 43.6% were Indigenous. We found gender-based violence as evidenced
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Southern Poverty Law Center. 2020. “Family separation under the Trump administration – a timeline.” https://www.splcenter.org/ (December 9, 2020) 11 Soboroff, Jacob. Ainsley, Julia. 2020. “Lawyers can't find the parents of 666 migrant kids, a higher number than previously reported.” NBC News, November 9. https://www.nbcnews.com (December 9, 2020). 12 See: https://www.splcenter.org/news/2020/06/17/family-separation-under-trump-administration-timeline 13 The National Congress of American Indians Resolution #ABQ-19-012. 2019. Calling to Protect and Advance the Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples Migrating to the U.S. NCAI 2019 Annual Session. https://www.ncai.org/ (December 9, 2020)
International Mayan League 1201 K St. NW Washington, D.C. 20005
Phone: (202) 827-6673 Email: info@mayanleague.org www.mayanleague.org
by several testimonies including from one pregnant Maya Kaqchikel14 woman who described her ordeal in detention. She said: “We were taken to la hielera [icebox]. When she spoke to immigration, they told her she was not speaking the truth [about her pregnancy] and that she would be punished and placed in a cold room. Those areas are ugly. They have cameras everywhere. There was a camera, and did not think it worked. So, I stripped [to shower] and I realized after. I was combing my hair; I could see other women showering. I was so ashamed.”15 The testimonies or stories we heard from Indigenous women were a foreboding of the horrific human rights violations of forced sterilization of migrant women in Georgia. We remain concerned that though there was mention of the “issue of proper informed consent”, as indicated by Project South in their report, “Lack of Medical Care, Unsafe Work Practices, and Absence of Adequate Protection Against COVID-19 for Detained Immigrants and Employees Alike at the Irwin County Detention Center”,16 there was no mention of Indigenous language assessment to indicate how many of the women were Indigenous. During a year of COVID-19 mutual aid work, we have seen the impacts to the Maya women in our community with loss of jobs, high risk jobs like cleaning in hospitals, and being the head of family households and responsible for food. We have also started to disaggregate data based on gender to better understand the demographic profile of our community in order to improve and tailor advocacy with our community. H) Resilience and Adaptation Within an Indigenous human rights framework, we have responded through advocacy, organizing, and community leadership development. This work has been grounded in our cosmovision, culture, and guided by Elders. Best Practices a. Created spaces of cultural resurgence and reconnection specifically for our youth, in our project, “Restoring our Ancestral Knowledge” and other workshops on Maya cosmovision, b. Created an Indigenous Language Interpreter Training Program, c. Formed Community Councils grounded in Maya identity and leadership formation, d. Developed, programmed, and executed Indigenous language resources specific to COVID-19, e. Indigenous led community mapping to tell our story through our own community, f. Documented human rights violations at the U.S./Mexico Border and wrote a report, “Indigenous Peoples’ Right to Exist, Self-Determination, Language and Due Process in Migration” submitted to the United Nations within the process of the UPR denouncing the Human Rights records of the United States, g. Developed nation to nation relationship with the National Congress of the American Indians that has resulted in the adoption of a resolution on the rights of Indigenous Migrations through the NCAI general assembly and Cherokee Nation,
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The identities of interviewees in Arizona, 2019, were kept confidential for their personal safety. See Cabrera López et.al. “Indigenous Peoples Right to Exist” www.indigenousalliance.org 16 Project South. https://projectsouth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/OIG-ICDC-Complaint-1.pdf 15
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I) Recommendations: Given that hundreds of thousands of Indigenous persons in migration are experiencing human rights abuses that are not adequately recognized, documented, or reported, and continue to experience violations in urban settings; we appeal to the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to take all the reports and statements into due consideration in order to begin to document and verify the particular human rights crisis facing Indigenous peoples in urban settings. The following recommendations are provided: A. Conduct a follow-up thematic study to “Indigenous Peoples rights in the context of borders, migration and displacement” prepared by the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (EMRIP) that takes into account and builds on “the limited work done to date on this topic including the lack of disaggregated data on indigenous migration; sheds light on the needs and rights of Indigenous peoples within the framework of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and explores the causes, consequences and experiences of indigenous peoples on the move, from an indigenous perspective; and will provide advice to States on how to ensure the protection of their rights of in that context.”17 B. Collaborate with EMRIP to establish an independent monitoring mechanism focused on migration in coordination with U.S., Maya, and other Indigenous experts that will: a) Conduct a thorough analysis of the human rights crisis facing Indigenous peoples at the U.S/Mexico border (including detention centers) and the interior U.S. impacted by previous aggressive immigration policies and current immigration policies, practices and procedures with a particular focus on Indigenous peoples and children; b) oversee the collection and analysis of disaggregated data on Indigenous peoples, in cooperation/agreement with Indigenous peoples, including on the basis of sex, age, language, disability and all those crossing borders (internal and international) in order to develop policies and programs18 ; and c) establish an Indigenous Languages advisory group comprised of Indigenous language and cultural experts to develop Indigenous language resources, train interpreters and translators in shelters and border patrol facilities, and immigration generally. C. Call for the establishment of an Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts to develop an investigative process into the deaths, killings, and separation of Maya and other Indigenous children and youth at the U.S/Mexico border under the custody of the U.S government. Provide a transparent report, the families of our children continue to await answers, justice, and to be reunified! D. Promote good practices such as consulting with Maya led organizations and autonomous spaces and peoples to learn about our existence and needs in urban settings and our particular relationships with local, municipal, state, and federal governments. And supporting strategies already led by Indigenous peoples rooted in our experience and knowledge of the needs and priorities identified by our own peoples and communities. I thank you for this opportunity to present our concerns of the grave human rights situation of Indigenous peoples living in urban areas, particularly the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Region and we look forward to working with you to achieve human rights for all peoples. Thank you, Gracias, Chjonte Piscataway Nation Territory (Washington, D.C.) – March 17, 2021 | 9 Q’anil
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EMRIP 2019, annex paras 9 and 10. This recommendation should also be considered: Indigenous peoples should be made aware of their rights under international human rights law, including the Declaration, and options for taking cases domestically, regionally and internationally. 18 EMRIP 2019, annex paras 9 and 10. This recommendation should also be considered: Indigenous peoples should be made aware of their rights under international human rights law, including the Declaration, and options for taking cases domestically, regionally and internationally.